


Melting

by 50artists



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-21 19:47:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12464604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/50artists/pseuds/50artists
Summary: Michael does not think she will ever thaw again.





	Melting

Michael does not think she will ever thaw again.

Of course, she is not a Vulcan. She cannot filter out her emotions - some nights tears sting her eyes, and her heart clenches into her throat when she sees Saru - but she can fall back into her old habits, and use the Vulcan system of repressing it all and carring on.

("Don't be afraid of sadness," Georgiou says in her memory, "we are human, and -")

\---

In some ways it was easier in prison. Michael was not expected to talk. Even the food was fine.

In prison Michael had her own cell. It was for her own safety, after her first cellmate - a skinny and badly scarred human, whose two brothers were both killed at the binaries - tried to murder her in her sleep. He'd seemed nice when Michael first arrived, even friendly. Then she woke up in the middle of the night with his hands around her neck. In the dark his eyes were glistening. For a second Michael was tempted to lie still. But she was not ready for death, and bucked and clawed until she managed to smash his head against the wall.

This became a recurring theme for the six months of Michael's sentence. She was not prepared to die. She always ate her food, and never let another inmate lay a hand on her. However, at the same time, she had nothing more to live for than a life in a cage.

\---

It is harder now, on the Discovery. All of the pain insider her, which could be ignored in the privacy of her own cell, is being stirred up and unburied when Michael wants nothing more than to sleep. One night she turns to Tilly and says, "I wish I could forget it all."

"Well." Tilly considers this seriously. "I think it's better not to. If you forgot all your mistakes, you might make them again."

"You think I'd do it again?"

"No - I mean, of course - of course not. No. That's not what I meant."

Tilly is too eager to please. She reminds Michael of the overwhelming process of acclimatising herself to humans other than her mother; everything with Tilly is too bright, too emotional, as if designed specifically to take Michael out of her comfort zone. It would be easy to deal with a roommate who wants to murder her. Michael has faced the same before. Instead, Tilly smiles when Michael gets back from the end of her shift, and snores for the whole night as if she does not fear her roommate at all.

"Of course I'm not afraid of you," Tilly says when Michael brings the subject up. "I mean, we're friends!"

\---

Michael takes to Stamets very quickly. He's easy to like - serious, a bit more blunt than humans tend to be, and clearly motivated by nothing more than a love for his scientific work. Plus, he takes Michael's input seriously. He may not like her, but Stamets recognises that Michael is intelligent and capable. It's a feeling she didn't even realise she missed. Not exactly authority. Something more fundamental.

Of course, the exact moment that Stamets gains her respect is when he turns to Tilly, whose smile is dying as she apologises, and says "no cadet, it _is_ fucking cool."

Tilly lights up again and before she even knows what's happening, Michael can feel herself beaming back, as if all the stress of the tardigrade and Saru and the captain's kidnapping is nothing more than background noise.

\---

"Anyway, I believe every word of it. Kind of feel like it makes him hotter," Tilly says as they stand at the replicators. She walks off and Michael takes a second before she follows, trying to stop the irrational jealousy that she has no right to feel.

Does Tilly find him attractive? Michael looks at his big, brown eyes from across the room. He's not ugly.

So they talk to Ash Tyler, who Michael's defence mechanisms scream not to trust - he is a new person, he recognises her as Michael Burnham, he will want to hurt her - but she takes the handshake he offers anyway, just for Tilly's sake. The feel of a human hand is still uncomfortable for Michael ("Too many years on Vulcan," Georgiou would say), and Tyler is no exception. Her fingers feel twitchy. Normally Michael would just pull away, but it's at this point that her connection with Sarek starts screaming, and within seconds she is gone altogether.

Sarek is remembering Michael's rejection. His mind tastes of shame, overwhelming and crushing, so much that Michael gasps out his name -

Tilly is holding her hand when she comes round. The other is on Michael's shoulder, but it is gentle, barely a pressure, not really restraining her. As she tells the captain about Sarek, part of Michael's mind is still focused on the guilty enjoyment of the feeling of Tilly's hand, which is now stroking her own. She does not resist the urge to grip back. After all, they're not on Vulcan.

\---

Sometimes Michael wonders what would have happened if she'd met Tilly while she was on the Shenzhou.

Probably nothing. They would have existed side by side, and Michael would never once have thought of reaching out to the cadet.

Still, it is a nice daydream. Her and Tilly, still roommates, but neither one of them a convicted criminal. Eating together without being stared at. Running together through the halls and waving as they passed members of Michael's bridge crew. Being able to assist Tilly more, watching her rise through the ranks. Tilly meeting Georgiou -

And there the daydream ends

\---

Forming anything deeper than a surface-level friendship has always been difficult for Michael.

If she reaches way back she can blame Sarek, or more accurately, the whole of Vulcan society. Not having friends as a child left her without any template to build from when she joined Starfleet. People respect Michael, they like her in a professional setting, but they do not make friends with her.

At first, Tilly is not an outlier. She is enthusiastic, and seems to want a friend, but Michael keeps a careful distance.

It is only when Michael finds herself eating every meal with Tilly, and requesting her presence on the mission to retrieve Starek, and smiling rather than feeling annoyed when she goes off on winding tangents, that Michael realises she has a true friend. She is not just humouring Tilly to avoid causing conflict. Tilly is not just being nice to her out of fear of 'Michael Burnham, Starfleet's first mutineer'.

"So I'm your mentor?" Michael asks that night, once the lights are turned off, but enough light is diffusing through to let her see the outline of Tilly's profile, the curve of her lips soft against the twilight.

"Best-friend-mentor." Tilly grins. "At least you let me have the salsa."

"Don't you ever think of how a freindship with me harms your chances of becoming a captain?"

There is a few moment's silence before Tilly replies. "I always feel like I'm annoying - even my mother thought I was - and just, you know, people want to push me away from them. Right now, I feel like we're actual friends, which is great! But when you say things like that, it reminds me of all those times even the nicest of people would hint at me to go away. And I didn't ever get the hints. And eventually they would have to turn to me and say plainly that they wanted me to go."

"I'm not trying to hint at you," Michael says quietly.

Again, Tilly smiles. "It still reminds me."

"I don't know how anyone could miss the opportunity to be freinds with you. They must have been idiots."

"Well, I am pretty annoying - even you think so sometimes."

"I don't!" Michael denys with a surprising amout of force. "Don't you dare think that for a second, Tilly. Of all the people on this ship, you are the one who has displayed the most courage and acceptance towards me. You do not annoy me. Anyone who does _not_ recognise your worth is highly illogical, and that's that."

\---

It happens so gradually that Michael herself does not immediately notice, but it is undeniable; daily life on the Discovery brings her no pain. She's not filtering it out, or holding back tears. Michael has a comfortable routine, and people who tolerate her presence with barely any hostility, and when she falls asleep she has no time for guilt because her mind is preoccupied with the complexities of the latest spore drive technological advances.

Somehow, her life is good.

Things will never be perfect. Georgiou is dead. Michael caused thousands more, but that death alone is enough to haunt her. Still, as time passes, she thinks of Georgiou less, and some of the ever-present sadness fades to the background. Instead she works on mushrooms and is friends with Tilly.

Strange and gorgeous and clever Tilly who she is half in love with.

(Some part of Michael still expects to wake up with hands around her throat. But hey, that's life.)

\---

Like everything in life, Tilly approaches the situation with honesty. "I've noticed recently that I'm not just experiencing feelings of friendship towards you," she says formally.

Michael looks up from her PADD and raises an eyebrow.

"Of course I've always found you attractive right since I first saw you. I mean, you're really hot, right? You must know that." Tilly lets out a small and awkward laugh.

"Thanks," Michael says.

"Oh God, am I making you uncomfortable? I should just shut up now, shouldn't I."

Michael puts her PADD down and looks at Tilly. She is stood in the middle of the room where she seems incredibly isolated, and her hands are clasped tight, her already pale knuckles turning bright white with the strain. She's not meeting Michael's eye.

"Don't shut up," says Michael, with too much gentleness in her voice.

\---

It is easy to tell that Tilly is an inexperienced kisser, but she's certainly enthusiastic, and Michael finds herself melting into their embrace. Their teeth click together a few times before they find the right angle. Michael tangles her hands into the masses of Tilly's curly hair and never wants to let go.

\---

At nights they both sleep in Tilly's bed now. It's definitely too small for two people - but then, space is a cold place to sleep.

"We could actually register as a couple," Tilly says after a few months, "and then we'd get a double bed which I'm pretty sure would be more comfortable, not to mention safer, and the room would be better for me without the bedsheets which I'm allergic to."

Michael hums. "That's not going to help your record, dear. I mean, just the fact we're both women will be isolating."

(In theory, there is no bigotry in Starfleet. Just like how in theory, Michael is rotting away in prison for the rest of her days.)

Tilly says what she always does - that she is proud of their relationship; that she is going to become captain on her own terms, and doesn't need to change herself to fit with what's expected; that Michael needs to remember she has support now, and neither of them are alone.

Michael just wraps her arms around Tilly as she drifts to sleep, and lets herself be warmed.

**Author's Note:**

> so this was super quick but I fancied writing something for discovery :^) and theres only like, six michael/tilly fics. I hope someone reads this and enjoys it. i'm not gonna pretend it's super well written or in character - i might try writing something better once discovery goes on its mid-series hiatus :0  
> my tumblr is xenixat.


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